by S. C. Emmett
“While I labor under no such constraints.” At least Kurin looked amused, and halfway complimented. He was already in pale mourning, too, and though he had been in the cote for some while no effluvia daubed his hem. He had ever been lucky. “It seems I spoke better than I knew. What do you want, Taktak my younger brother? What is your price?”
There was no help for it, so Takshin set his jaw and braced his stirrups. “A marriage endorsement.” In Shan, the reins would be held in a man’s teeth as he galloped for the enemy, an operation he had never seen fit to employ. A horse should know what to do by knee-pressure alone, and he valued his ivories as much as an old man missing half of them might. “Leave it blank, and send it to me.”
“Ah.” Kurin’s smile widened. The morning heat was collecting in corners, and the dust was already thick. “Who is the lucky lady? One of the court wenches, perhaps?”
Did Yala have enough water? Was the horse fit, or had he been lamed? So much could go wrong. “Mock me, and I shall withdraw my offer. You’d be a fool to.”
“What exactly are you offering?” Kurin’s lazy tone warred with the gleam in his gaze, sharp interest like a merchant turning a bright bauble this way and that, wondering at its worth.
“The same thing I offered Takyeo.” It was a lie, of course. He would disdain to bargain with his eldest brother; he served there precisely because he wished to.
Because it pleased him, where so little else did.
“And what is that? A surly, stomping sneer every now and again?” Kurin’s expression suggested he knew very well what his brother was offering, but wished to hear him say it.
So Takshin swallowed the bitterness and did what he must, gazing across the dry-garden’s clipped, trained wilderness. “A blade you do not have to worry is turned against you.” Hot air glimmered above the stones, an illusion several sages held was water trapped and trembling at the edge of becoming steam.
“What stops you from sinking the blade into my back now, dear brother?”
What, indeed. The consideration that striking Kurin down now would rob Takyeo of some legitimacy, since nobody would believe he had not ordered the death, obviously did not cross his brother’s mind.
Besides, if Takshin did so and Ah-Yeo succumbed, the throne would fall to Makar, who was a far more dangerous adversary. Takshin knew Kurin’s desires but was uncertain of Makar’s, and there was little time to plumb the latter.
“Shan.” He had to give Kurin an answer he would believe. “Or more precisely, I am little threat if handled correctly. I was adopted; I may no longer succeed Zhaon’s throne. And whoever sits upon that overdecorated bench will find me very useful indeed.”
Kurin was half convinced, but the bait needed more sweetening. “And my surety is…?”
“You are a merchant, to be needing one?” The insult was calculated to keep the conversation upon its channel, and away from Yala. If Kurin suspected exactly where his little brother would spend the marriage endorsement, half Takshin’s advantage was already lost.
It was always best to hide what one could, and as long as she was not named directly during this conversation he could consider her unthreatened by his elder brother. Should that change, legitimacy could be damned and he might strike a few more heads from their shoulders too, just to be certain. Oh, Takyeo would dislike it later, if Heaven somehow looked down and decided for once to perform as it ought. He could always take Yala to Shan; Kiron would enjoy her and Sabwone would only need one short, sharp lesson before she left anything of Takshin’s strictly alone.
“Now who is mocking?” The Second Prince— or perhaps Crown Prince when the succession was formally ordered, if Takyeo continued to draw breath that long— rubbed at his chin, his hurai glinting as Takshin’s own. “It’s a reasonable question, Taktak.”
“Well, Rinrin, you have nothing but my word. That should be enough.” The sun was above the bulk of the Iejo’s back, this garden clinging like a perfume ball to a courtesan’s belt. He had other matters to attend to, no doubt Kurin did as well, and for a moment Takshin envied the thorn-spiked plants whose only duty was to grow where they were placed.
On the other hand, they were at the mercy of a gardener’s shovel, while Takshin was sharp enough to cut the hand seeking to uproot him.
“A flimsy assurance.” All things considered, Kurin was far more intrigued than his little brother thought he would be, which spoke to any number of things, not least the fact that his mother’s eldest son was playing catch-the-kite like the rest of them.
Which hinted perhaps he had not been responsible for the attack in the Artisan’s Home, narrowing the suspects indeed. Takshin set that particular thought aside for later brooding. “Have I ever failed in a promise before?”
“You flung an arrowhead upon a table and promised to hold Mother accountable for any attack upon Ah-Yeo.” Kurin settled his hands inside his sleeves despite the heat, and Takshin was almost, almost certain he had accomplished his aim.
“And who says I do not?” He simply had not yet had time to bring their mother to account for this latest attempt, which might be laid at her partition after all if Kurin was truly innocent. No doubt the First Queen of Zhaon thought she would escape her younger son’s wrath, but if Shan had taught him anything, it was how to wait. “Do you wish me to retract that promise?” It would curdle, but…
It would be worth it. I owe you a debt, for this.
“Oh, certainly not.” Kurin’s smile broadened, rather like a feline who had studied enough birdcage locks to be satisfied he could attempt breaking one. “Not at all, my beloved younger brother. Very well. Go away, I must think this over. Should I decide to engage your particular…skills, you shall receive a letter from me bearing the endorsement.”
“Well enough.” Takshin turned away, paused. His fingertips ached to touch the gold hoop in his ear as an exorcist might tap at a good-luck charm, but that would be a banner raised upon a hill for any enemy to see. “I do not need to warn you to be discreet.”
Kurin’s laugh was full of genuine goodwill. “Oh, certainly not. We understand each other, little brother.”
At least, I understand you. If Kurin was indeed blind to Takshin’s affections, so much the better, but he did not think it likely.
It was not treason, he told himself. He saw Death crouching upon his eldest brother’s face, but while Takyeo lived, Takshin would protect him. There were, however, others to protect as well. Perhaps he should even visit a temple and beg a god or two— or even the Awakened— for some mercy, like a peasant belly-crawling for patronage.
It did not matter. He would lower himself to whatever was required to keep Komor Yala safe— and to keep her close, he would do much more.
LONG-EAR, FLUSHED
Waking alone was just as disorienting as riding until dawn, but perhaps Khir’s horse-goddess had visited while she slept, for as soon as Yala opened her eyes she knew what the cob-headed grey’s name was. It had a certain fittingness. “Gunzheu,” she murmured in Khir, with the particular ending-inflection that meant a proper name instead of any archer, and the horse flicked an ear in her direction, opening one mild, doze-heavy eye. “It suits you, my fourfoot cousin.”
The horse regarded her with amused insouciance, rather like his owner. Yala uncurled, stretching, and winced several times. At least there had been no downpour, the stifling clouds were but a pall in the distance.
In short order she had shared a bit of dried fruit with her fourfoot friend and was in the saddle again. He was more than willing, and as a hot, dry dusk fell, Yala felt somewhat sanguine about her task.
Unfortunately, as she cantered through an ungated village shortly after midnight someone must have seen her, for a hunting-horn sounded high and trembling upon the night wind, and the sound of gongs burst the night’s taut dark drum-head. She could not afford to think it some other alarum, unconnected to her presence.
The long-ear is flushed, she thought grimly. Now let us see how well the hunters ride. S
he chirruped to Archer, and her knees tightened. He was responsive as a fine brush, veering off the road into the screen of ragged bushes, and she spread Mrong Banh’s map before her internal eye again.
There was a distressing amount of distance between her and the character representing Kai. She would have to cut a sapling soon, sawing with her yue to gain a thin, flexible rod.
Just in case.
Teeth clenched, jaw aching, Komor Yala bent over Archer’s neck and urged the horse on, testing his responses. He obeyed with good grace, and she hoped he was as amenable as his master could sometimes be.
CORRECTIONS AND CHASTISEMENT
Her eyes stung, and so did her nose. For once, she was not buried in a round, stifling, swathed room. Instead, the First Queen of Zhaon had settled upon a square cushion, her plump elbow in unbleached silk upon the polished wood of a low table, and gazed over a lacquered, ankle-high balustrade at one of the Kaeje’s many gem-bright gardens. A square teapot of Uewo make steamed, its thin, expensive walls seeming barely strong enough to contain the liquid within. Two cups of the same make stood ready, but the guest was late and Gamwone stared at fluttering jewelwings as well as the zipping jumjeos with their heavy carapaces held aloft by blurring transparencies.
All was in readiness. She did not shift, staring at the green and the bright flowers. At least she was not cold; summer haze vibrated over the rustling babu. A water-clock thik-thock ed in the near distance, standing sentinel over a clear pond; crimson and blue petals scattered upon a hot wind. The rains had moved to the evening hours, but the garden still steamed.
She had wept all she thought necessary, and nobody cared enough to listen to her raging. Now, she was laying plans. Gamnae was in her rooms, no doubt weeping for her father— she was useless, and young, but still a valuable piece for a mother whose own son was behaving terribly.
Even though Kurin had chastised Binei Jinwon. That fat curltail, daring to speak to her so— she still felt his cheek stinging her palm, and how satisfying had that been?
Very. As satisfying as seeing her coming guest bow and scrape would be. Garan Gamwone was a force to be reckoned with, and though Kurin was headstrong, she was still his mother. The mother of the next Emperor, if all went well.
It had to go well. She would not accept any other outcome.
Finally, there were hurrying footsteps in the hall behind the papered partition. She turned her head a fraction, knowing she would be seen in the proper attitude of grieving, poetic contemplation when the servants and guest entered. It was necessary to give the right impression, and she wondered who would cling to her guest’s skirts today. Bringing out another cup or two was a way to drive home that she was a powerful patroness, and a generous one if her few strictures were followed.
Or if you were useful enough. Especially while so much else was…uncertain.
Her fingertips wandered over the small ceramic bottle in her left sleeve, its round belly crossed with warning zigzags. Yona had procured it, as she did so much else; it was Yona who had brought the news that Tian Ha, erstwhile prime physician to the First Queen of Zhaon and consequently much consulted about the court for small ailments or large, had finally expired.
Consequently when the partition slid along its groove, she wore a very slight smile, which she hurried to replace. But the expected guest did not appear; instead, Yona, in unbleached cotton that turned her sallow, her mouth a tight thin line and her cheeks somewhat paler than usual, bowed deeply before half-rising, crossing the threshold heel-to-thigh in the peculiar manner of a teahouse server bringing a bill to a patron too illustrious to be faced afoot.
“Lady Gonwa is late,” Gamwone murmured, returning her attention to the garden’s smear. Under the green and the carefully snip-arranged branches, there was soil teeming with worms, maggots, and other wriggling things.
“Glorious First Queen of Zhaon.” Yona settled herself just inside the now firmly closed partition, arranged her hands correctly, and bowed again, far more deeply. “Lady Gonwa sends her regrets. Her niece is ill, and she…she cannot attend…there is a gift, of course, but…”
Oh yes, there would be a gift. Gamwone stared at the garden, its beauty reduced to a green blur with vermilion and blue dots. Down among the roots the nasty things crept, and to be a queen was to crush them under a decorated jatajata’s wooden slats. A noble daughter married to a warlord learned to fight with what weapons she had.
So the court ladies, like the idiot creatures they were, were waiting to see which quarter the wind would finally hail from. “The niece,” she said, softly. “Eulin. A big, provincial girl. Sent to that horsefucker princess, to bow and scrape.” Gamwone examined her nails, the smallest on each hand protected by a filigree sheath. And to think she had arranged herself out here, knowing Lady Gonwa’s liking of tea taken upon a garden porch. “Yes?”
“Yes, that one.” Yona did not repeat Gamwone’s vulgarity, having no shield of nobility to render it piquant instead of ill-bred. “But she is not in the Jonwa; Lady Gonwa brought her back to the city estate after the foreign princess was…well.”
After she was murdered. Oh, they would probably lay that one at Gamwone’s door, too. They blamed her for everything, when they were not scrambling to insult.
The fact that she had contracted an impresario to bring one or two petty annoyances to bear upon the Emperor’s firstborn brat from his dead spear-wife had nothing to do with it. In the first place, it was to be expected since one who could not avoid an assassin was not a noble; in the second, after all, the tradesman of the Shadowed Path had not succeeded.
Perhaps she should have availed herself of more. A hundred of them, and sooner. Maybe someone else would finish him off while he lay in the palace that should have been her own son’s, and afterward it might rankle that hers was not the hand sending the spear-born brat into his pyre.
“Oh, don’t cower there,” she said, sharply. “Come closer, Yona.”
The chief lady-servant did, upon her knees— the traditional way of approaching an angry superior. It irritated Gamwone even more— she had arranged herself prettily in order to convey a great favor upon the chief of court ladies, been rudely snubbed even though she was in deep mourning for her husband, and now Yona was acting like her mistress was going to call for the sudo.
Though there were many of the articles hanging in the tiny closet Gamwone had set aside for corrections and chastisement. It appeared they all needed reminding of just who she was.
“Your Gracious Highness.” The honorific address for Zhaon’s First Queen— first among equals, the saying went, but what a lie— had at one time soothed the lady so addressed. Now it irritated her, hearing Yona laboriously pronounce the syllables without the burring of her provincial accent.
“Come, come.” She waved a plump, beringed hand, smooth silver-edged greenstone clasping her left first finger, a heavy creamy band on her third right. Lady Gonwa’s guest-gift, in a pretty silk-wrapped box with its bright orange cotton bow, was to hand in a sewing basket near Gamwone’s side. “Perhaps I should give this to you. Certainly you’re better company.”
“Your Majesty honors her handmaiden.” But Yona did not move farther forward. On another day her caution would have pleased Gamwone as being a proper due.
Now it was a reminder that she was utterly isolated. The summit was a lonesome place, especially with everyone below you shaking the ladder, and even the thought of her lord husband in his tomb after dying like a creature caught in a thick black pool of pitch could not fend off the dreadful uncertainty.
“Closer, Yona.” Her tone brooked no disobedience, and her fingertips drifted across the warning zigzags in her sleeve-pocket again. She had meant to deal with this small matter after tea, feeling the flush of victory— she had, after all, outlived Garan Tamuron and was the mother of his only real heir— but now was as good a time as any. “There. Now, pour me a cup of tea.”
Yona did as she was bid, her sleeve trembling slightly.
“Listen, my servant.” There were ways to make that collection of syllables sound fond, and Gamwone used one now, half-lisping the sibilants. “We must look after each other, two women alone in a great house, must we not?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Yona’s profile held an echo of the girl she had been, before her mouth turned thread-thin while guiding the crops of house-servants grown younger and younger in order to make them more tractable, reliable, safe. Their freshness, however transitory, showed her age. “I am your faithful servant.”
“Good. Now, do you remember that bath-girl my late husband…” Gamwone paused, not just from the shame of it— a bath-girl , all very well for a moment’s dalliance, but the selfish man had to express a partiality— but also from the sure instinct that it was best not to state what she wished too clearly, even now.
Besides, a good servant should anticipate without overstepping, and if Yona needed a lesson, Gamwone would provide it after this matter was cleared up.
“Dho Anha,” Yona murmured, because of course a great lady like the First Queen should not have to remember such a trifling detail. “Still at the baths, Your Majesty. Grieving, no doubt, as are we all.”
And no doubt wanting to replace one royal customer with another. Kurin had been seen in her company more than once lately, and it had pleased her before the game had changed. Now it was time for severity. They were wily, clutching beasts, those bath-girls, and Gamwone must keep her son safe, must she not? No matter how headstrong he— temporarily— proved to be.
“No doubt,” she agreed, dryly, and slipped the vial from her sleeve-pocket. She set it upon the table, just at the very edge, where Yona could not help but see. “Do they all eat together, those lice?” The derogatory term for those who scrubbed others’ flesh was old and not quite noble, but again, Gamwone’s position was so high, she might as well call things what they truly were.